-->

aws ,  security tip_of_the_day, iam

AWS is a very critical service for businesses and enabling a 2nd factor authentication would be very helpful to increase security.

Step 0: Install Google Authenticator or a similar OTP generator tool on your mobile device.

Step 1: Logon to your account and select Security Credentials from the menu on the upper right corner. Then click on Activate MFA button. AWS MFA Step 1

Here you have two options. You can choose to use a hardware device if you choose to purchase one from Amazon. At the time of this writing the price on Amazon was $12.99 so it’s also an affordable option. I decided to use Google Authenticator because it was already installed and active on my phone and I didn’t want to manage another piece of hardware.

Step 2: It will display a QR code which you can scan using Google Authenticator. Once the scan is completed you will need to enter 2 consecutive numbers the device generates. Once the device is synchronized it will be ready to use. You can verify it by checking its status:

AWS MFA Step 2

Step 3: Log out and log back in to see the results. After the password screen you should see an additional screen asking for the authentication code.

AWS MFA Step 3

Resources

misc

One of the sites I like is Coderwall. It’s a nice place to check out quick tips from different developers. Also it has a voting system which you feel a bit validated when people find your tips helpful. I have 6 “protips” in their site and some of them had a few upvotes. I was motivated to post more tips which are especially too short for a blog post.

Your upvotes are no good here!

A few backs I logged in to check if I had any new upvotes. To my surprise, not only I didn’t get anything new, all my previous hard-earned upvotes were deleted as well! I contacted their support and 2 weeks later they said they could have been deleted because of spam concerns. If a tip is online for about a year and it was viewed by hundreds of people and got 3-4 upvotes in the process I think it’s safe to think that there’s not a scam going on here. Even if you think something is fishy you should give them benefit of the doubt just because the numbers are very small and very plausible. Luckily, I have better things to do than scam Coderwall and a few measly upvotes have no meaning at all.

Time to pack and leave

A week later I decided to publish all my posts n my blog. I went to my account to list my tips but the link wasn’t working. So I couldn’t even get the tips I had created. At least they provide a way to search by username. That’s how I could find my own tips. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back! So the lesson learned here is that always take control of your own content. Publish it on your own site/blog or whatever platform you control then propagate your content elsewhere if you choose to do so.

Goodbye, Coderwall!

I know this idea sounds very natural and obvious to some people. I think I should have thought of it before this incident but at least I recovered my content without any loss and learned a valuable lesson. I may still post to Coderwall but after deleting my votes and treating me like a scammer I’ve lost interest to their site. Looking at the quality of their support I don’t think they will be around for a long time anyway!

From now on I will post suck quick tips on this blog under “Tip of the Day” category.

dev tip_of_the_day, sql_server, ssms

The feature exists but a bit buried away. To create insert statements for table(s):

  1. Right click on the database and go to Tasks -> Generate Scripts
  2. Select the tables that you want to generate the script
  3. In “Set scripting options” page click on the Advanced button
  4. Under the General category, locate “Types of data to script”. It contains 3 options: Data Only, Schema and Data, and Schema Only. Default is Schema only,if you select an option with data in it you can get the data with the insert statements.

Generating Insert Scripts With SSMS